tution was adopted, and was
finally abolished only within the memory of many now living.

It could hardly be expected that a political system set up for a
community containing a large slave population and in which the suffrage
was restricted, even among the free whites, should in any large measure
embody the aims and ideas of present day democracy. In fact the American
Constitution did not recognize the now more or less generally accepted
principle of majority rule even as applying to the qualified voters.
Moreover, it was not until several decades after the Constitution was
adopted that the removal of property qualifications for voting allowed
the people generally to have a voice in political affairs.

The extension of the suffrage was a concession to the growing belief in
democracy, but it failed to give the masses an effective control over
the general government, owing to the checks in the Constitution on
majority rule. It had one important consequence, however, which should
not be overlooked. Possession of the suffrage by the people generally
led the undiscriminating to think that it made the opinion of the
majority a controlling factor in national politics.

Our political writers have for the most part passed lightly over the
undemocratic features of the Constitution and left the uncritical reader
with the impression that universal suffrage under our system of
government ensures the rule of the majority. It is this conservative
approval of the Constitution under the guise of sympathy with majority
rule, which has perhaps more than any thing else misled the people as to
the real spirit and purpose of that instrument. It was by constantly
representing it as the indispensable means of attaining the ends of
democracy, that it came to be so generally regarded as the source of all
that is democratic in our system of government. It is to call attention
to the spirit of the Constitution, its inherent opposition to democracy,
the obstacles which it has placed in the way of majority rule, that this
volume has been written.

The general recognition of the true character of the Constitution is
necessary before we can fully understand the nature and origin of our
political evils. It would also do much to strengthen and advance the
cause of popular government by bringing us to a realization of the fact
that the so-called evils of democracy are very largely the natural
results of those constitutional checks on popular rule whi